This section provides background information related to the present disclosure that is not necessarily prior art.
It is known to configure vehicle door latches to inhibit opening of the door in the event of a vehicle crash, so as to inhibit or otherwise restrict vehicle occupants from being ejected from the vehicle. Some safety systems for latches that provide such a feature do so by way of inertial members that swing into a selected position, as a result of predefined accelerations that occur during the crash event itself, to inhibit undesirable opening of the latch during the crash event. Other safety systems for latches can employ a control system that attempts to determine when a crash event is imminent and then attempts to drive a latch operation inhibiting member into position to restrict operation of the latch.
In terms of inertial members, these safety systems provide for members to inhibit operation and subsequent opening of the latch by moving the inertial member and one or more latch components towards one another during a crash event, due to inertial differences that exist between the latch components and the inertial member during the crash event. The timing of relative movement between the inertial member and the latch component(s) is configured, based at least in part, on inertial member mass and component center of gravity, latch component(s) mass, and/or anticipated acceleration magnitude and direction imposed on the inertial member and the latch component(s) during the crash event.
During a vehicle crash or other emergency situation, vehicle doors have to be kept closed independently of handle activations or other user or external interventions (e.g. deformation of handles and/or other latch release components that cause the latch to prematurely unlatch during the crash event). Thus, control of undesired door opening during crash events is a very important matter in latching and opening system development because of homologation and safety implications. Current state of the art systems configured to accommodate for inertia effects experienced by latches, handles and release cables during crash events require a specific development of the handle or of the latch. Accordingly, the integration of these inertial systems is not easy and may not allow the necessary modularity. The integration of current inertial systems is also very invasive and the latch and the handle are not easily optimized, thus contributing to inefficient design and/or extra cost.